Compared to the Tang family’s social standing, their residence was actually quite modest.
In the interstellar era, land was plentiful everywhere except for A-District, where the Imperial Palace and the Parliament were located. The nobility and the wealthy competed in extravagance; some had even hollowed out three mountain ranges to build a single, magnificent garden.
The Tang family wasn’t quite so ostentatious.
They had only hollowed out one mountain.
Due to the anti-aircraft restrictions of the defense system around the Tang estate, the hovercar couldn’t fly. For the first time in this era, Yun Chuji experienced the sensation of ground travel.
As they passed through a birch forest, Yun Chuji saw the snowscape she had longed for. A world of white stretched before her, with slender, pale tree trunks standing against an even whiter layer of snow, creating a beauty that would captivate anyone from the southern lands.
However, the only southerner in the car was not captivated by this.
She was captivated by something else.
Captivated by a single sentence someone had said—
Marriage?!
Meeting the parents?!
Wasn’t this supposed to be just an ordinary family gathering?
Just an introduction to her parents to raise her value in the eyes of Glory.
How had it escalated to marriage and meeting the parents!
Yun Chuji kept waiting for Tang Jianxi to say, “I was just kidding.” She waited until the winter scenery turned to spring, until they got out of the car and started walking, but Tang Jianxi never said it.
Before them stood a massive, brilliant fountain, atop which was a pristine white statue of a goddess, her kind gaze directed due north. The fountain was surrounded by green trees and fresh flowers, layered in lush foliage. A small path wound its way forward, but the house at the end of the path seemed minuscule in comparison to all this grandeur.
It was a blue house, covering only a little over five hundred square meters, not even half the size of the garden in front of it. A white wooden fence dotted the perimeter, and a few lounge chairs were scattered casually on the lawn, giving it a cozy, livable impression.
This style, so contrary to the era, felt strangely familiar to Yun Chuji.
Tang Jianxi held Yun Chuji’s hand as they walked along the path, explaining with a smile, “My brother and I don’t usually live here. We only come back on weekends and holidays. My parents come back whenever they have time off. After all, this estate was designed by my father himself. He’s always found the Empire’s architectural style too cold and rigid.”
Yun Chuji listened distractedly as Tang Jianxi pointed out the interesting features of the estate. Just as they were about to reach their destination, she suddenly stopped.
She decided to face the issue head-on. If this was a marriage proposal, then it should be treated as such.
So, Yun Chuji said seriously, “But I didn’t bring any gifts.”
Tang Jianxi looked quizzically at the bags Yun Chuji was carrying in her left hand. “You did.”
She had spent all of yesterday preparing them the moment she heard she was going to meet Tang Jianxi’s parents.
“If this is a marriage proposal, these gifts aren’t enough.”
“So that’s what you’ve been thinking about all this time?”
Tang Jianxi tilted her head up slightly, her smile more bewitching than the blue-eyed daisy beside her.
“Are you teasing me again?” Yun Chuji realized, her brow furrowing. A soft sort of fierceness came over her.
Tang Jianxi squeezed her hand and whispered, “I’m not teasing you. Our relationship is public now, and I’m bringing you home to meet my parents. At my age, people will naturally assume you’re my fiancée-to-be.”
“Even after several thousand years, bringing a romantic partner home still means a lot, you know. While it doesn’t mean we have to get married tomorrow, it does imply we’re planning to.”
Tang Jianxi thought she had successfully smoothed things over, but she hadn’t expected Yun Chuji to completely miss the point. She nodded. “That’s right. A lady of your age should indeed be married. If you were in our time, you’d be a grandmother in a few years.”
Tang Jianxi’s face darkened at her words. Her own father wasn’t even a grandfather yet, and here Yun Chuji was, thinking about making her a grandmother. What dreadful feudal thinking!
A little antique, indeed!
She quickly let go of Yun Chuji’s hand, her tone dangerous. “Are you suggesting I should get married and have children as soon as possible?”
Seeing her like this, Yun Chuji wasn’t scared at all. Instead, she broke into a wide, cheerful grin. “See, Jianxi? Now you know how it feels to be teased, don’t you?”
“Marriage is a serious matter. It shouldn’t be used for teasing.” The little antique lifted her chin, nodding slightly. At such a young age, she already had the air of a scholar, reminding Tang Jianxi of her own father, who was never without a book in his hand.
But the second young lady of the Tang family didn’t have Yun Chuji’s good temper, who would meekly endure any teasing.
Especially after being successfully outmaneuvered, Tang Jianxi felt a strong sense of crisis. Ever since this little antique had opened her mind, her thinking had become more flexible by the day. Give her a little more time, and wouldn’t she be on par with her?
That wouldn’t be fun at all.
So, Tang Jianxi crossed her arms and pretended to think seriously. “I suddenly feel like you have a point. But on second thought, by the standards of your era, you’re not that young anymore, and neither am I. We’d make a good pair—our ages are suitable, and we know each other well.”
“Ah—I suddenly think it wouldn’t be so bad if we got married.”
Tang Jianxi’s words were half-truth, half-jest. If you asked whether she truly wanted to marry Yun Chuji, she was uncertain. She admitted she liked her and was determined to win her over. But Tang Jianxi considered herself too level-headed to be completely swept away by love. After she had calmed down, she realized that what she had said in front of Winona had been too impulsive, and even the teasing remarks she’d made to Yun Chuji afterward were also too impulsive.
Love was still a distant prospect; talking about marriage was far too pretentious.
However, the reality was that Miss Tang, while remaining calm, was using that calmness to disguise her impulsiveness. She was completely unaware that she was now using teasing as a pretext to subtly probe Yun Chuji.
Maybe she likes me too?
This was a hesitation and a longing that Tang Jianxi’s proud heart was unwilling to admit.
To her surprise, Yun Chuji shook her head very seriously. “Jianxi, you deserve a much better alpha than me. So far, I’ve been relying on you to live. I can’t even be sure if I can stand on my own in this world yet. You should find an alpha who is more worthy of you.”
“Besides, Jianxi, we are both women. Although I am currently an alpha, I still can’t truly accept it in my heart. So, I probably can’t fall in love with you. And you shouldn’t just settle for me because you can’t find someone suitable. Your marriage, Jianxi, should be built on love.”
Tang Jianxi didn’t know how to feel right now. It was so contradictory. Even though the other person was twisting the knife, she still found it rather cute—that silly, adorable way she tried to plan things out for her but got it all wrong.
She was hopeless.
At the same time, Tang Jianxi seemed to be infected by her earnestness and couldn’t help but become serious as well. “But, in our era, love isn’t the most important thing for an alpha and an omega to get married. Pheromone compatibility is. Love can fade, but pheromone compatibility lasts a lifetime.”
Yun Chuji turned her head, her eyes widening in astonishment, as if to ask, how can you be so foolish? “Why can’t you have both?”
“Besides, the probability of having a compatibility rate so low that you can’t get married is very small. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. Moreover, if there’s no love in a marriage, even if the pheromone compatibility is so high that your bodies yearn for each other constantly, it’s just a base, controlled desire.”
This statement made Tang Jianxi see Yun Chuji in a new light. She touched her forehead and shook her head with a laugh, then faintly uttered a few words: “Morning Drizzle.”
Those two words acted like a spell, instantly wiping the solemn, love-defender expression from Yun Chuji’s face. Not only that, but she also blushed crimson.
Yes, that’s right. Miss Tang had mercilessly exposed the feudal girl’s “words of experience” for the facade they were. “Tell me, Yun Chuji, of all the movies I recommended, did you only watch the romance films?”
“Of course not,” Yun Chuji retorted in a low voice. “I watched two documentaries as well.”
The psychologically adolescent girl, who had secretly watched The Story of Yingying twice, blushed even deeper.
Tang Jianxi helplessly pinched her cheek. “You silly kid.”
I’m really starting to feel old, the stunningly beautiful Second Miss Tang thought with a pang of sorrow. Only young people would so proudly recite lines from movies.
Fortunately, their anticlimactic conversation finally ended as they walked the last short stretch of the path.
Opening the door, the two changed their shoes and walked down a long corridor to the living room. There, on a large sofa, sat a man of exceptional grace. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and was holding a rare paper book. The light from the floor-to-ceiling window cast a warm glow on his profile. Among omegas, he could truly be considered a peerless beauty.
Beside him sat a middle-aged woman with a stern face and a striking presence. She held a cup of hot tea, seemingly focused on the news on the light screen in front of her. In reality, she glanced at the man beside her every thirty seconds, a smile appearing on her face—a smile that seemed strangely out of place yet incredibly blissful.
Yun Chuji’s eyes were fixed on the man. For an alpha, this could be considered rude.
The woman frowned, about to reprimand this ill-mannered youth, when the young woman said in a daze, “Teacher Chu?”
The man—Chu Yuexi—lowered his book upon hearing her voice. He looked at Yun Chuji with a gentle expression, not a hint of surprise in his wise eyes. He smiled and said, “Student Yun, it seems we are quite fated to meet.”
The middle-aged woman, Tang Ji, suddenly felt the situation had spiraled beyond her control. She had intended to put this pretentious alpha in her place, but it turned out this person was her wife’s student. As Mr. Chu Yuexi’s secret admirer, asking Tang Ji to do something that would displease her wife was more difficult than asking her to spend an entire evening laughing and joking with those old foxes in the Parliament.
Tang Ji quietly tilted her head, staring at her equally unsurprised daughter, and mouthed, “You didn’t tell me it was like this?”
Unaware of her mother’s intentions, Tang Jianxi frowned in confusion and sent her a message via her comm device: “It’s not that important, is it?”
Important? It was very important.
Tang Ji looked at her potential future son-in-law, who was happily chatting with her wife about a topic she knew nothing about. The fifty-meter-long blade she had been readying in her hand now felt uncertain.
Finally, she forced a sliver of warmth onto her stern face and said, “Don’t just stand there. Sit down. Both of you, sit and have a good chat.”
Yes, Tang Ji decided to trust her wife’s judgment.
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